Q&A: bodie Steps Fully Into His Own With ‘NO SKIPS’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIARA ALMANZAR ☆
Photo by Emily Gringorten
RISING ALT-POP SINGER-SONGWRITER BODIE IS NO STRANGER TO REINVENTION - Known for his genre-blurring sound and breakout run as the runner-up on The Voice Season 22, bodie has spent years experimenting, evolving, and circling back to what feels most true. Finding his sound was never about choosing one genre over another - it was about learning which parts of himself he wanted to amplify. That journey came with trial and error, voice shifts, seasons of doubt, and full-circle moments that ultimately shaped the artist he is today.
That evolution is fully realized on his debut album, NO SKIPS, released September 5. The project delivers a concise yet impactful listening experience: 10 tracks, roughly 29 minutes total, and not a single moment that feels disposable. Blending alt-pop with rock textures and subtle R&B influences, NO SKIPS explores themes of personal growth, faith, resilience, and emotional honesty. It’s a project that feels like both a homecoming and a forward step, returning to the alt-rock energy and live-show intensity that shaped bodie early on, while still holding space for big vocals, nuanced emotion, and storytelling that sits close to the heart.
Ultimately, NO SKIPS stands as a confident first full-length statement, one that reflects years of searching, refining, and returning to what matters most. It’s an album that values intention over excess, presence over perfection, and connection over category, cementing bodie as an artist willing to grow in public while staying grounded in his voice.
We caught up with bodie to talk about NO SKIPS, touring, songwriting, and what this moment means as he continues to carve out his own lane.
Photo by Emily Gringorten
LUNA: The title NO SKIPS feels like such an intentional title for a debut album. What does it mean to you, and how did that concept shape the album’s creative direction?
BODIE: I wrote most of these songs and some were even released before I even knew I was going to put out an album. So when I thought of the name No Skips, it was actually for a single called “No Skips”. Me and my friends were just writing songs that got us excited and that shared a little bit about my heart.
Then we're like, “Oh my gosh, what if we named the whole album No Skips? That's like so cocky and hilarious.” And that's honestly why the album was named that. I wish I had like this super deep reason why we named it that and how all the songs correlated with it, but it really was just the conglomerate of songs that I wrote with my friends and share my heart. And then we wrote the song No Skips.
And ironically enough, it kind of doesn't even sound like most of the other songs on the album. But man, we have to name this album No Skips, 'cause that's just really funny.
LUNA: You’ve described your sound as genre-blurring — pulling from alt-pop, rock, and singer-songwriter influences. How did you find that balance while shaping NO SKIPS?
BODIE: It's been such a journey. I think every artist has some kind of identity crisis at least a dozen times in their career. For me, I grew up on rock music through and through. I grew up in Los Angeles, my dad was a touring bass player, rock was just what I knew. And then there was grunge, and I surfed a ton, so I got into more of that surf and island feel, and being from California there was also like, ska music in the mix. But then, as I got into my preteen and teen years, I discovered hip-hop and completely fell in love with it. And obviously pop is inevitable — at some point everyone listens to pop. So all of those sounds were kind of happening at once, and I was just figuring out where I fit in all of it.
I started to listen more to pop in my high school years. Once I started really writing music, I was so confused because I didn't really know what I wanted. I didn't know what sounded best for me vocally. And it took a lot of years to kind of figure out what I wanted to do. And then when I figured out what I wanted to do, 2 years later, I changed my mind again.
It's just this funny journey of kind of always deciding who I am and what I am as an artist. This album specifically was kind of my return to more of an alternative rock sound that I hadn't really partaken in since like my high school years.
It's been really fun to kind of circle back to my roots and do it in a new, fresh way, but still infuse the fact that I do like to sing big vocals and ballad stuff every now and then, and I do appreciate hip hop production and the drums.
That's kind of what you get with this album and even moving forward with my next stuff too - it's very much a hodgepodge, but rooted in kind of an alternative rock sound.
LUNA: How did making NO SKIPS push you creatively or personally compared to your earlier releases like “whisper and the wind” or “RIP”?
BODIE: I think this was my first group of songs as a signed artist. This is my first group of songs kind of coming out officially as an artist professionally, like pursuing this as my legitimate career. There was a lot of pressure just that I put on myself.
I really wanted these songs to represent me well. I wanted them to represent my faith well. I wanted them to represent sonically who I want to be. So it was definitely a little bit scary.
I think that's always something as any type of creative, like whenever you put your stuff out there, there's always a fear or an inevitable anxiety of like, man, I hope people get it. I hope people, maybe they don't have to like it, but I hope they get it, you know? If I want to write some like banger alt song and then follow it up with like a tear jerker ballad, how can I do this in a way that's going to reflect who I am? But also I would love for these songs to move people and help people navigate things that they're going through and things that they can relate to.
That's what stretched me the most is like, how can I sound the way I want to sound, perform on these songs the way that I'm proud of, while also reflecting my heart, like for my love for God, but also my heart for people? So that has been and will always be my focus and, inevitably, that also brings a little bit of stress and stretching for sure.
LUNA: “whisper and the wind” has clearly resonated with listeners worldwide! Over 30 million streams and now Top 10 on both Billboard Airplay and Mediabase. What do you think it is about this song that connects so deeply?
Photo by Emily Gringorten
BODIE: Man, I think sonically — like production aside, because there are definitely things in the production that help pull that emotion — the lyrics are just really honest. They just kind of call it like it is. The song, in a nutshell, is about the fact that I’ve experienced God move in ways that are undeniable, that doctors couldn’t prove or disprove. I’ve seen God do things that have changed my life and the lives of people around me.
But more often than those big, miraculous, sweeping moments, He’s in the stillness. He’s in the day-to-day battles. He’s in the hard times and the quiet trials where we’re on our knees asking, “God, if you love me, why aren’t you changing this?” And yet, even there, He’s with us — carrying us through when we don’t feel it. That’s the heart of the song.
I think whether people believe in God or not, that truth connects. There’s something about knowing that someone out there loves you and is with you in the big moments and the small ones — the mountain tops and the valleys.
And honestly, part of shifting from writing more secular music into writing more openly Christian music was scary. I was worried I’d isolate myself or lose fans who didn’t share the same beliefs. But being this honest in my songwriting — especially with songs like this — and still having it speak to people from all backgrounds has been so encouraging. So yeah, this song is really special to me. I love it.
LUNA: Winning the grand prize in the International Songwriting Competition is huge, especially judged by artists like Paul Stanley and Nancy Wilson. What was your reaction when you heard you’d won, and how does that recognition validate or challenge you as a songwriter?
BODIE: I forgot that I was even entered in that contest. My manager just submitted it, and I was on tour. I actually have a video of this. We were sitting in a McDonald’s, and my manager was being really weird. He’s like, “Hey,” to my videographer, “get the camera out.” And I’m like, why? And then they start filming, and I’m like, why are you guys being weird?
Then I get a phone call, and I still didn’t know who it was. They’re like, “Hey, we’re with the International Songwriting Contest,” And they’re like, “Yeah, out of like 14,000 submissions, from hundreds of countries… a Christian artist has never won the grand prize.” And I’m like, “Okay… cool, cool.” And then they go, “Until now — congratulations.” And I’m like, oh my gosh, this is crazy.
The fact that this song is speaking to all kinds of people, when it’s so clearly written from what I believe and where I stand — it just goes to show how far honest songwriting can go. I was so honored. It’s still insane. I laugh about it sometimes, like, dang, that was never the intention. We were literally just writing a song in a little two-bedroom Airbnb in Nashville, and now it’s gone international and encouraged so many people. That’s really special.
But I will say, whether the contest existed or not, or whether I won or lost, I’d feel the same way. Every time I write, I want the next thing to be better than the last. So did it push me? Like, inadvertently, yeah. But I don’t think the contest itself is what caused that. It’s just part of how I approach writing now.
Photo by Emily Gringorten
LUNA: You’ve just wrapped the Murder My Ego tour and joined two others this fall. How has life on the road influenced your creative process or relationship with your fans?
BODIE: It’s affected my creative process in a way I didn't expect. When I'm on tour, and all of this is still new to me, I’ve realized I just can’t really write. Or at least, I don’t want to yet. I'm so focused on the show aspect, and my fans, and just being present with my team and the people who come to see the shows, that I’ve discovered it kind of stunts my songwriting process a little bit, which is interesting. I just go into, like, content creator mode — vlogging every day and all that.
But it definitely stretches me when it comes to performing and my health, and making sure I’m prioritizing things so I can be the best I can be on stage. And something I’m really proud of that I do at every single show — and I’ll continue to do it until the day I realize it’s not possible anymore — is that after every single concert, pretty much ever in the last two or three years, I stay outside at the merch table and I meet every single person I possibly can. And it has been very wonderful and very special.
I’m actually not very extroverted, so it’s definitely hard for me, but I just think it’s really special — those memories with people who felt it was necessary to pay money to literally watch me sing. Like, what an honor that is. So yeah, that’s a big part of my tour too: the people.
LUNA: Fans first met you on The Voice, but you’ve clearly carved your own lane since. How do you look back on that experience now, and what do you think people misunderstand most about life after the show?
BODIE: I’m like a huge advocate for encouraging people who are either going to be on the show or thinking about being on the show, because there are a lot of misconceptions about what it actually does for your career. And the big thing is, man, it is an incredible experience. It’s so, so fun. But shows like that aren’t necessarily your big break. Usually, once you’re off the show, give it six months and you’re kind of right back to what you were doing before.
So what I always tell people, and what I tried to do myself, is that The Voice is a magnifying glass. Anytime you get those five seconds of fame, it just magnifies who you already are. So I knew going into it that I needed to have some idea of who I wanted to be perceived as. If I wasn’t already putting out music and content, people wouldn’t know who I really was beyond the covers.
So I set myself up before the show, and once I did the show, which I had no idea I’d go as far in as I did, I hit the ground running when it was over. And a lot of what I expected was true. After five or six months, the super intense Voice fans who were commenting on everything started to fade out. It took about a year to naturally cycle out the fans who were there for “the guy on TV,” and start gaining fans who cared about the music I was making after.
And a lot of people from The Voice era have stayed—and I’m so grateful, they’re amazing. But there definitely was this natural filtering process of who was here for me as an artist versus who was here for me as the cover-performance guy. Navigating that was interesting, for sure. Now that we're 2 years out, I think it's safe to say that my following is there for what I'm doing currently, which is great.
Photo by Emily Gringorten
LUNA: You’re in this exciting in-between space with breaking mainstream while staying true to your roots. How do you protect your artistic voice as your audience widens?
BODIE: I'm in a tender season with my music of like, I just want to be obedient to what God's calling me towards. So with that, there's a lot of nuance and I can give you a spiritual, religious answer, which I'm not going to do. But the bottom line is just I'm just going to stay true to who I am and have a really good time writing songs. If I'm supposed to be in this career path in this arena, then the songs are going to work. And if they don't, we'll figure it out and we'll move forward.
I spent a lot of years really, really, really focusing on like, how can I make this work? How can I win? How can I reach mainstream? But also blah blah blah.
And now I'm just at a place where I'm like, man, I'm just going to write from my heart and align myself with a team that believes in me and has similar values and vision. And we're going to crush it and we're going to make really good music. That's kind of been the wave I'm on recently, and it's doing an OK job so far. So that's kind of what we're continuing to do.
LUNA: Finally, if you could sum up this NO SKIPS era in one word, what would it be and why?
BODIE: I'm going to say “energy” because from the ballads to the bangers, everything that I wrote, I had the live show in mind. I love bringing energy, passion to the stage and it always starts with the songs. So I would say “energy.”
NO SKIPS is out now - listen here.
